May

• Toledo resident Chad Quigley expressed frustration over the City of Toledo’s failure to take action on two dilapidated properties adjacent to his home at 2245 Putnam St. Quigley said he spent nearly one year writing, calling or visiting “every single person that had anything to do with nuisance abatement on any level” within City of Toledo government.

• Aspiring Minds of Toledo, formed in 2000, joined forces with EPIC Toledo (Engaging People, Inspiring Change) after leaders from both groups decided they operated with similar missions. The addition upped EPIC’s overall membership to 400 individuals.

• Toledo Free Press President and Publisher Thomas F. Pounds received the “Toledoan of the Year” award from the City of Toledo in the Community Investment category for his founding of the 150,000 circulation weekly newspaper, which first published in March 2005.

• Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner visited the Hotel SeaGate May 9 to cite the hotel as a “public nuisance” for emergency conditions that existed there, specifically plumbing problems and cleanliness issues. Finkbeiner gave the owners of the hotel 72 hours to “clean up and repair” the property at 141 N. Summit St. Finkbeiner said he served the nuisance order on the hotel to make an example of it and encourage other businesses to maintain their buildings in a clean and structurally sound way.

• To honor Robert Bell’s 50 years of service to the organization, the Toledo Symphony honored the group’s president and CEO at May 22 event at the Toledo Club. Bell has seen the symphony grow from a $50,000-a-year operation to an organization that now has a $6 million annual budget and a $15 million endowment.

• Local car dealers said high fuel prices in late May led to increased sales of more fuel-efficient vehicles. Don Ansted, sales manager at Jim White Toyota in Toledo, said hybrid sales in Toyota’s Camry, Highlander and Prius models increased 30 percent to 35 percent due to higher fuel costs.

• The Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions announced May 23 its member unions all reached tentative agreements with The Blade on collective bargaining agreements after a lockout that lasted approximately nine months.

• Toledo’s SSOE Inc., one of the nation’s largest architecture and engineering firms, expanded with the addition of 200 positions. Fifty of the news hires were expected to be based at the company’s headquarters in Downtown Toledo.

• Representatives from UT and the University of Michigan announced May 22 the schools would meet on the gridiron for the first time in Ann Arbor in 2008. The schools are separated by about 50 miles.

• A group that hoped to remove Toledo Mayor Carty Finkbeiner from office launched its campaign May 29 outside the Erie Street Market, a building it labeled as one of his failures. Led by 22-year-old Thomas Morrissey, the group of volunteers hoped to collect 30,000 signatures within 90 days from the May 29 petition launch to put the recall referendum on the Nov. 6 ballot. Toledo’s city charter requires 25 percent of those who voted in the last mayoral election to sign the petition to have the recall referendum placed on the ballot.

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